Using ternary operator to check if null - null reference is not the same as null

Question

I am attempting to use the ternary operator to check if a value is null and return one expression or the other. What I'm experiencing when incorporating this into a LINQ expression is that the Transact-SQL translation of the LINQ expression attempts to do a "column = null" rather than a "column IS NULL". I have reason to believe that this is because I'm doing the following:

mappedColumnName == (myVar == null ? null : myOtherVar)

Since it translates the following to columnName IS NULL in Transact-SQL:

mappedColumnName == null

Does anyone have any experience with this? I'd very much like to get this to work.

The entire LINQ expression:

(from MenuItem in menuContext.Menus
   where MenuItem.IsSysAdmin == (ClientID == 1 ? true : false)
   && MenuItem.IsActive == true
   && MenuItem.ParentMenuCode == (ActiveSubMenu==null?null:ActiveMenu)
   && MenuItem.ClientID == (UseClientMenu ? ClientID : 0)
   && MenuItem.EmployeeID == (UseEmployeeMenu ? EmployeeID : 0)
   orderby MenuItem.SortOrder, MenuItem.MenuName
   select MenuItem);

Solution 1

I've never actually attempted to use ternary operators in linq although you could write it as:

(
    (myVar == null && mappedColumnName == null      ) ||
    (myVar != null && mappedColumnNmae == myOtherVar)
)

Solution 2

Why don't you use

mappedColumnName == (myVar == null ? DBNull.Value: myOtherVar)

instead?